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A deeper look at the fumbles in Persona 5's localization, and the industry in general
- Thread starter TheSporkWithin
- Start date
[citation needed]
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
As someone who has worked as a translator in video games localization, reading through this site was very satisfying. There is some really bad work in Persona 5.
Some of those lines show a simple lack of comprehension of the original Japanese. It's as if they didn't have any native speakers checking their work.
Some of those lines show a simple lack of comprehension of the original Japanese. It's as if they didn't have any native speakers checking their work.
As expected from an account that was approved nearly 2 years ago but only decided to start posting today. I guess it can't be helped.
silveralen
Neo Member
"Why did you say X?
"I never said that"
"We have a picture of you saying X"
"It was taken out of context, also ignore the fact me saying X would be totally consitent with everything else I've done and said"
"Seems legit to me"
What if I told you there was a middle ground, where the necessary changes were made while still keeping true to the original source?
again, you are trying too hard to make it seem like the game is implying the older detective has magic telephone powers
what happens is
-SIU director calls the building, tells them to get Sae if she appears
-Sae shows up
-older guy hangs or leaves director waiting on phone, goes to Sae and goes hey the director wants to talk to you
-Director hangs on older guy and calls Sae directly
there's no magic involved! this has even happened to me. My boss will call the office I am going to because I haven't answered my phone because I was on the subway or something; he calls the office I am going to, I arrive, they tell me "your boss is looking for you" and bam, my boss calls on my phone and I pick up because I finally listened to the ring. it is a thing that happens
maybe it is not exactly what the original text said! but watching that scene and end up believing the older guy has telephone prediction powers is just being purposefully obtuse
King Gilga
Member
Dayum, what a freak of nature.
What's the problem with that? He's objectively right. Weeb opinions saying otherwise don't count.
silveralen
Neo Member
Oh no persona 5's translation could be better. I fully acknowledge that. I just found myself getting a bit annoyed when I realized how disingenuous the whole thing was.
I can acknowledge the translation was flawed while also acknowledge the person who made the website and most of the people who wrote those articles had other motivations.
I don't see anything contradictory in saying both "literal translations are objectively bad" and "not respecting the meaning of the original text is bad".
To be clear : I don't care nor know much about the FE translation drama; I only quoted your first post because you were asserting something that was in direct contradiction with the site's creator own words.
edit: disregard this post at your discretion, I'd rather not pile on you.
No one believes that Older Detective has telephone prediction powers. That's not what the game seems to imply there, either. But most people do understand that the translation comes off as nonsense because it doesn't properly convey, at all, what Older Detective is actually saying. The meaning from the Japanese scene is completely lost, and left with a mess which makes English players scratch their heads.
If it came off clearly to you, that's great (and I'm not sure how it could, since the game makes no effort to imply that there was a previous phone call). But most players have the reaction Jeff did at 23:44. It makes no sense, and that's what makes it one of the worst examples from the game.
Your example isn't someone going, "There's a call from your boss," and then your phone ringing mere seconds later as if that person knew that your boss was going to call you right then.
silveralen
Neo Member
Well, generally I find people whose tune changes after they are finding themselves the subject of criticism kinda suspect. Given that his original stance was also consistent with the main focus of his site, it reeked of backpedaling to me.
No worries, I don't exactly post here often or use this account so if I actually got bothered me i'd just bail.
I actually think it's the exact opposite -- most of the translation issues read like it was done by a native Japanese speaker, and generally speaking you want the translation to be done by a native speaker of the language you're translating to, not the one you're translating from.
A couple of examples of where I think this is the case:
- "He is a scum". People have been calling this "overly literal", but it's really the opposite problem. A word-for-word rendering from Japanese would get you "he is scum", because Japanese doesn't have grammatical articles (a/the). But because Japanese doesn't have articles, native Japanese speakers tend to struggle with figuring out when and where to use them in English (the rules are insanely complex and almost impossible for native English speakers to explain), and misplaced or wrong articles are a common mistake you will see them make in English.
- That whole phone scene at the beginning with Sae. It's confusing because the verb tenses are messed up and the phrasing is way-off of anything that I think a native English speaker would write. It reads exactly like the kind of translation you get when someone has a less-than-stellar grasp of the language they're writing in.
YEART!
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I'm only speaking from my own experience, but stuff like:
etc. etc. demonstrate a lack of understanding the original Japanese. Especially the first two. Either that or they got broken by an editor for some reason and weren't spotted by anyone. I've seen that happen before, but I'm more inclined to believe it's a translator (possibly without context) having trouble understanding the source language.
Where is the backpedaling? Dude wants good localizations that promote readability and preserve the original intent, not literal translations​ that sacrifice those qualities for awkward prose.
I was just about to post that video. Also, it doesn't make sense for the SIU Director to call the Older Detective, who doesn't know Sae and apparently doesn't have a cell phone he can carry around, to go find her [assuming she's there at that moment] so they can speak when the SIU Director has her number. The detective also makes no effort to notify Sae of what she's actually supposed to do, given everything else is correct. Is there an office she needs to be heading to? What is she supposed to be doing with that information? She doesn't work there, she doesn't know this guy. "There's a call from your director. Hurry and get it over with. To be frank, you're being an inconvenience." Ok? There's so many layers that have to get stitched for this to even kinda make sense in the few sentences there are to show it.
Why? Why do this when they could've just had the director say "I just received a call from your director"? I'm more inclined to bet it was a mistake more than anything.
TheBryanJZX90
Member
I'm still curious how on earth you came up with more people preferring a literal translation to a liberal one.
LegendofLex
Member
I think every single one of the examples given sounds a million times worse than the kind of crap I have to edit at work every day so it actually feels like it came from someone with a good grasp of written and spoken English.
If someone who was working for me put out writing like that, they would no longer have a job.
TheBryanJZX90
Member
Hey wait what's wrong with 改めて being translated as "to reiterate"?
Can't speak for the Japanese, but for the English, "to reiterate" and "just so we're clear" are redundant, with "to reiterate" sounding kind of out of place for a character like Sojiro (whom I'm pretty sure said it).
It was the school principal.
It's hard to say -- none of those errors clearly scream either "common error made by native Japanese speaker struggling with English" or vice-versa. I don't know that I buy the lack-of-understanding explanation (like with "たった今、お宅の部長さんから電話があった", you're going to learn that あった is past tense of ある long before you learn anything else in that sentence, but that's the part the translation fumbles?).
Mistakes being introduced in the editorial process would make a lot of sense, though, especially if they were rushed for time.
LegendofLex
Member
It's entirely possible for a person to have used both in common speech (people say redundant things all the time).
But it's hard to see how such a choice would be justified in this context, or (and especially) based on the Japanese not using redundant phrasing. There's no basis for it in the original text, and it definitely adds nothing to the English.
semiconscious
Member
good post. when there's awkwardness in the text, this's indeed what it feels like to me: translated by someone for whom english is their second language...
A lot of this stuff is super nitpicky and acts like context to scenes doesn't exist. There are certainly some legitimate issues (the Sae phone thing is totally weird, although they could also be patching the call through to her or something theoretically), but a lot of the cases he's pointing out are not hard to understand at all and certainly don't detract from the game. I'm on the 7th palace and haven't had any major issues other than with the pronunciation. My other issue with this sort of nitpicking is that a game like this is absolutely massive. There is a ton of work that goes into localizing it. If you have some issues with lets say 20 scenes out of 100 hours, that's really not that bad.
But kudos to this guy, he's apparently an editor and has managed to get this link RTed over 1,000 times so it's good exposure for him.
But kudos to this guy, he's apparently an editor and has managed to get this link RTed over 1,000 times so it's good exposure for him.
LegendofLex
Member
This issue is actually directly addressed by the page, lol
If it isn't an excuse for native English authors writing books in native English (most of which have more words than most video games), it isn't an excuse for writers for a game being released in English, either.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
"To reiterate, just so we're clear," is weird and looks like someone decided to translate 改めて a different way but left in the first one by mistake.
TheBryanJZX90
Member
Yeah either one would have been fine by itself to me, and together it's a bit awkward/redundant in English, but since it was presented as an example of the original Japanese being misunderstood I was wondering if there was some aspect of the word 改めて that I was missing.
Funyarinpa
Member
This stuff saddens me, from what I've seen, P5 deserves much better.
silveralen
Neo Member
That's the same passage where he compares it to a book with 1 in 3 lines poorly worded and 1 in 5 with a major error. As opposed to the person above, who stated he noticed like 20 in his entire play through.
The fact that the bad liberal translation was getting push back before the game even launched, the bad literal translation is getting push back two weeks after with most people not even feeling the need to mention it.
I mean, persona 5's popularity pretty much indicates people aren't particularly bothered by a bad literal translation or it isn't actually as bad as people are making out to be (or some mix).
The website specifically addresses this question and this type of thinking.
TheBryanJZX90
Member
So you pulled it out of your ass based on absolutely nothing. Got it!
The website says "How Atlus fails fans of a landmark JRPG." Which part of that says COMPLETE trash or COMPLETE failure? Why do you think something can only be 100% a success or 100% a failure? Or that the word fail only represents catastrophe.
Look at this statement that's also from the website:
Are you also reading that statement as saying the localization effort was a complete failure too? That the effort was catastrophic instead of just disappointing?
If I expect something to be a best in class effort and instead its merely ok, its fails to meet my expectations. That's not hyperbole. What is hyperbole is you insisting that anyone who suggest Atlus could have done better actually thinks P5's localization is nothing more than complete failure.
That's not how it works. Persona 5 was poised to be a relative hit from the get-go. Also, there is no contradiction there. I bought it, and yet I am bothered by the bad localization job. More than anything, I think its popularity is a testament to how good Persona 4 was and people assuming that the localization work would be up to par with that title.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
It depends on the context. It can mean that, but it can also just mean "to be clear," as it does in this case, or just be used as a generic formal phrase to preface something you really want to be sure gets through to the listener.
This may just be a situation of the translator lacking context completely.
In that example, I imagined that the person translating had a limited understanding of たった今, thinking it could only mean "right now in this immediate moment" rather than "just now" (which actually implies a brief amount of time in the past).
You don't seem to understand anything he's writing. Literal translations ARE usually objectively bad because most languages are so vastly different that they do not sound good when doing such a straighforward translation in a large number of cases (perhaps most cases). That doesn't mean he supports games just going totally ham with characters, their motivations & shit when doing a more liberal localization, changing things willynilly. He defended Fates because he thinks that Fates' English dialogue is well written/translated from a readability POV.
He does not defend the localization team taking so many liberties that character motivations are muddled or switch throughout the story when they do not in the original, he just thinks that Fates dialogue reads better and as such it is a better localization than Persona 5's. Of course if it does go so far with its liberties that the original intent is just completely gone or even turned around, no one is saying THAT is ok either. Still, in most localization cases taking SOME liberties is far preferable to straight, literal translations. He does not argue that no matter how badly done the liberties taken are, it's better than literal translations.
So whatever you are arguing here is based on you misunderstanding all of his argument or twisting & exaggerating his arguments into what he is not arguing.
meltingparappa
Member
This doesn't come up as much as it should.
The cutscenes in the last twenty hours of the game are an absolute mess with how much isn't subtitled.
PshycoNinja
Member
If this is considered nit-picking then I don't really know what to say...
I'm just glad people don't see the actual nit-picking that occurs on professional localization teams that scrutinize every word in every clause of every sentence.
I'm just glad people don't see the actual nit-picking that occurs on professional localization teams that scrutinize every word in every clause of every sentence.
I lol'edlooks like no one got this joke
lol
Translation and intent of the creator aside, is it really too much to ask that at the bare minimum the English writing is correct? It's Atlus, so is it so bad to have standards? Yakuza 0 is also massive, and while although you can debate the actual localization of things like jokes and puns and whatnot, its writing is rarely if ever grammatically incorrect or awkward. I feel like Persona 5 should deserve at least that much. I don't understand why people have a problem with critiquing this stuff. Why is it so hard to accept that some people want things to be the best they can be?
Translation and intent of the creator aside, is it really too much to ask that at the bare minimum the English writing is correct? It's Atlus, so is it so bad to have standards? Yakuza 0 is also massive, and while although you can debate the actual localization of things like jokes and puns and whatnot, its writing is rarely if ever grammatically incorrect or awkward. I feel like Persona 5 should deserve at least that much. I don't understand why people have a problem with critiquing this stuff. Why is it so hard to accept that some people want things to be the best they can be?
encephalon
Member
"Literal" translations aren't a matter of personal taste, they more or less don't exist. At least for Japanese.
Furthermore, while the way different languages construct the same thoughts differently may be interesting, but focusing on it doesn't bring you closer to the original text, it pulls you farther away. Natural Japanese sounds like natural English to those experiencing it.
Furthermore, while the way different languages construct the same thoughts differently may be interesting, but focusing on it doesn't bring you closer to the original text, it pulls you farther away. Natural Japanese sounds like natural English to those experiencing it.